jsf converter loses injected property

I had this working before, but then I changed some things, and I can't get it to work again. I am trying to use my service tier to hit the database and get a correct object from my converter class, depending on what the user clicks. I inject the service property into my converter with spring. During debugging, I can see that the property gets sets properly. But then when I go to call getService, it is null.

@FacesConverter("PlaceConverter")

@SessionScoped public class PlaceConverter implements Converter {

private SearchQueryService searchQueryService;

/**
 * @return the searchQueryService
 */
public SearchQueryService getSearchQueryService() {
    return searchQueryService;
}

/**
 * @param searchQueryService the searchQueryService to set
 */
public void setSearchQueryService(SearchQueryService searchQueryService) {
    this.searchQueryService = searchQueryService;
}

@Override
public Object getAsObject(FacesContext arg0, UIComponent arg1, String submittedValue) {
        try {
            Criteria criteria = new Criteria();
            criteria.setId(Integer.parseInt(submittedValue));
            return getSearchQueryService().findPlaces(criteria).get(0);
        } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    return null;
}

@Override
public String getAsString(FacesContext arg0, UIComponent arg1, Object value) {
    ((Place) value).setCategory(" (" + ((Place) value).getCategory() + ")");
    return String.valueOf(((Place) value).getPlaceId());
}

}

<bean id="placeConverterBean" class="com.ghghg.converter.PlaceConverter">
    <property name="searchQueryService" ref="searchQueryServiceBean" />
</bean>

Solution

Dependency injection in a converter works only if the converter is declared as a managed bean by the dependency injection framework in question. E.g. JSF's own @ManagedBean, or CDI's @Named, or Spring's @Component. You should remove the @FacesConverter altogether and reference the converter instance in EL scope instead of referencing it by the converter ID.

Thus, so

<h:inputXxx converter="#{placeConverter}" />

<f:converter binding="#{placeConverter}" />

instead of

<h:inputXxx converter="PlaceConverter" />

<f:converter converterId="PlaceConverter" />

Your concrete problem suggests that you were referencing it by converter ID (thus, via @FacesConverter). This way you end up getting a converter instance without any injected dependencies.

jsf converter loses injected property

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